Sunday 17 June 2012

Our Town Council is of it's Collective Head


I think the balloon has gone for good even though I can see no official announcement anywhere.
Down on the site there is a pile of dug up equipment and the wince gear plus the dismantled gondola. As well as this pile which should some be taken away ( hopefully) the paths that lead to the balloon plus the concrete landing place have all been dug up. Around the site there were several blocks of concrete set into the ground to tie the balloon down. They have also been removed. The mast that carried the CCTV cameras are also no where to be seen. Now a few weeks ago I was down at the site when some workmen form the balloon company were working there. I was assured that the equipment was only being removed to be refurbished. OK I can understand that but only a perfectionist with loads of money would dig up all that concrete just to 'refurbish ' it.
Hopefully next time I get down there the railings around the site will have gone as well and we can all forget the blood thing was ever there in the first place.
The last mayor forced this hideous object onto the sea front, now the present mayor wants to spend up to half a million quid to see if it would be possible to build a 3rd harbour in Torquay so cruse ships can dock here and disgorge rich passengers who would spend loads of money here. Sounds fine until you look at his, the mayor's figures. Extra income to the council of just over a half a million pounds plus extra income to the businesses in the town of 800 000 quid. So far so good. The cost of actually building the harbour would be at least £125 million. If you add interest on any loans plus the inevitable over spend a project like this generates plus maintenance it could be a couple of hundred years before the project breaks even and goes into profit.
Either the mayor wants to bankrupt Torbay or he is mad or just bad at simply arithmetic? This third harbour will never happen but the council have just agreed to spend hundreds of thousands of pound on a feasibility study. Are they also mad? Or did the mayor hold a gun to their heads? Email your councillor and tell him you will be voting for someone else at the next election if this blatant waste of money goes a head.

4 comments:

DG875 said...

Hooray! they should have buried some of their daft ideas in the holes before they backfilled them.
Hopefully it's gone for good!
So can we now have our gardens back please?

Anonymous said...

Stop moaning! I am sure if you had your way we would still be living in the 1930s!!!!!

DG875 said...

I'd settle for the 50s or 60s! when Torquay was a great town to live in and the visitors came in their 10s of 1000s.
The only comparison with the 30s is the state of the economy.

David said...

There are lots of things that can be done to improve the Bay if only our council would actually do them.Wasting this amount of money on a fesability study for something that would take ten years to achive is crazy. Spending it on reducing parking fees would be more productive or even a road coaches could use to get visitors to Berry Head. Wanting to spend money wisely isn't the same as wanting to live in the 30's.